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Think of it as the technology world's equivalent of the Better Off Deadnewspaper boy hunting down his $2.

Earlier this week, the website of encryption specialist Neoscale displayed the following message.

NeoScale owes its webmaster, of the last 5 years, $4400 USD

The message appeared just as UK-based security outfit nCipher announced that it had acquired some of NeoScale's assets, including technology and employees. It would seem, however, that at least one of NeoScale's former contractors didn't get taken care of as the company sold off its good bits.

An nCipher spokeswoman told The Register that an employee from a company called Marketing Tactics sent her a number of invoices, seeking compensation for work done on behalf of NeoScale - a company with $40m in funding . The spokeswoman informed the chap that nCipher would not be handling the invoices, since it was only purchasing NeoScale assets and not existing liabilities.

The Marketing Tactics fella responded as he saw fit, posting both the note about the webmaster fees and the nCipher spokeswoman's response on the NeoScale website.

Both notices have since been removed with NeoScale.com now redirecting to nCipher.com, although you can see trails of the web anger via a search.

I want my $4,000

"Lots of things are going to come out of the woodwork (during an acquisition)," the nCipher spokeswoman told us. "But we bought NeoScale's assets from a company called Hercules Technology. We didn't buy the business or take on any of their liabilities.